Tag: Design

I am about half way through my third week back at work. I am doing six hour shifts this week. So far I am doing okay. Not great but okay. I am still having considerable pain but I am just glad to be back. I started Lyrica about the same time I started back at work (the night before). That is not going so great so far, not that I really expected much. It’s not really helping at all with my pain during the day. At night it makes me so sleepy that I am unsure if I am sleeping okay because of that or because it is helping my pain. I think more just that it is knocking me out

I started at 75 mg and was supposed to increase it after about a week slowly up to no more then 300 mg. I haven’t gone up at all. The reason is that I don’t think I would be a fully functioning human being if I did. I can barely tolerate the 75 mg. I tried last night just the one time to increase to 150 mg, today I struggled with every word at work, I was staring off into space and I felt as if I had cotton balls in my mouth. I am not doing that to myself again tonight so back to 75 mg I go.

I am going to see if I can get a prescription for 25 mg from my doctor and try going up more slowly from 75 mg. I can see why I hate this medication the first time I was on it. It really does a number on you. I am so dizzy as well. I am scared to drive and won’t drive right after I take it. So I take it at night. I am not sure it’s going to work for me but I need to give it some more time I think. It’s hard because I am tired of dealing with the pain which is still pretty considerable. I have pain which is sometimes feels like a stabbing pain and other times a burning or searing sensation down my leg. I have pins and needles and a numb sensation that happens often. I am also getting a lot of swelling still.

I want so badly to just ditch the crutches and walk but I am scared to as well. Sometimes I wonder if that part is in my head. If I am just limiting myself because I am scared. The medication is making me unsteady and dizzy, plus my leg tends to give out from underneath me but should I just stop using the crutches? I am trying to slowly come off them. I can put most of my weight on my leg with them. Without them though I tire so quickly and I hurt so much more. I really am not sure what to do there.

Anyway, so as you can guess from the title of this post, Edward and I have been considering relocating for a little bit now and guess what? We are moving! We’re doing it! Edward found out today he has a job in Digby at Gidney Fisheries! He starts November 19th and gave his notice at his current job today. He was concerned how his boss would take it but he took it pretty good and was happy for him.

I also put in my resignation at the bank today, or at least that was the plan. Instead though I am going to see if I can take a leave of absence at their suggestion. Apparently they have an option when moving to another city or town in the same or different province that you can take a transfer leave which gives you 90 days to apply to and get a position in the same bank with another branch, location or department. If you don’t get one then on the 91st day your employment ceases as if you resigned but it also gives you a chance to keep your benefits and seniority while I attempt to find something and 90 days in case nothing is available right away. I read somewhere I have to give 4 weeks notice to do this but they suggested it so hoping no one notices

When I mentioned I was resigning my manager asked me to give him about an hour before I put in my resignation and talked to his manager then came back and told me this. They said they hope I can stay with the bank. They have branches in both Digby and Yarmouth. Yarmouth is only about an hour’s drive. We could settle somewhere between Digby and Yarmouth if I got something there eventually. In the meantime my parents have offered to rent us the cottage they just bought for quite a bit less then what we are paying for rent here.

They bought it outright so no mortgage. We would pay the utilities and a small rental fee all in one, the utilities will be on budget plans that will be the same each month, they plan to keep them in their name I think and we just pay them one amount to cover it all and even if we don’t and we pay the utilities ourselves in our name we will still be ahead. We’d be looking at half to two thirds what we are paying here once everything is said and done. About a $200 to $350 savings a month over our current living situation here. Edward will be making a bit more then $2/hour more there then here, plus after 6 months he will have full benefits.

If I stay with the bank I will still have everything I have here (full benefits plus lots more) but be $1 to $2 less then I make here. So in the long run it would even out pay wise. I have a lead on a job outside the bank as well and have been talking to a recruiter for a domain registration and web design/hosting company that has an office in Yarmouth and one here in Halifax, they are really interested in me. I have actually worked for them before.

They are looking for both domain specialists (sales) and technical support in Yarmouth. I enjoyed it the first time I worked there but I left to go to Afghanistan and when I came back they weren’t hiring and I moved on to somewhere else and honestly never considered them again till now. I know a few managers and other employees. In the meantime I can do some transcription work for my mom who has a lot of work right now and could use my help.

Overall this is a move in the right direction for us I think. We will be getting out of the city which we both want. We are tired of it here. We will be living in an area we love doing things we love. We’ll miss our friends in the city but plan on still doing a once a month game night with them and they can come visit and we will be in the city a lot still. We have to keep our doctor in the city as there is currently a shortage and over 50,000 Nova Scotian’s who don’t have family doctors. Plus we like him and want to stay with him anyways

So anyway, in the long run though it will mean saving more and much faster. We can save a down payment now, it would actually be possible. I plan on taking the full amount we would pay for rent up here each month, pay my parents what they want and take the rest and put it in a savings account. Something we can’t easily access. Also it will be good as well because the cottage is 2 bedroom, or will be in a few months when we make it back into a two bedroom. So we will start the process again for fostering/adoption. We are so excited!

At the end of April I decided to do at the end of each month a monthly recap of the month. So today is the end of May. Wow I can’t believe it is the end of May already! The month went by so quickly. It was a beautiful month. May has always been one of my favorite months. I remember celebrating May Day in school when we lived in Europe when I was younger. I always took part and I loved it.

So I guess I am going to start with my May goals and then I will also talk a bit about other things that have happened during May. I want to make this a monthly thing that I do each month more for myself then for anyone else reading just so later I can look back and see the progress I am making as well as see what happened in certain months but I think it is also interesting as a feature post that shows what is going on in my life.

May’s Goals

Walking – I had said I wanted by the end of may to be walking an hour a day and 10,000 steps a day. I am often hitting the goal for 1 hour of walking a day by walking to the bus and walking some extra stops as well as mall walking on my breaks. However as far as 10,000 steps I have learnt that 1 hour a day is not necessarily going to equal out to 10,000 steps a day. I am getting about 6500 though. Which is still much more then I was doing. As for two 5-7 km walks a week. I am getting in one 7-10 km walk a week on the weekend in. So I am not there yet but I am still considering it a win as I am doing better then I was.

Blogging – This one I am proud to say I am meeting. I think I am averaging 3 posts a week. I am writing them up on the weekend and scheduling them mostly but I am perfectly okay with that. I am still writing the posts and that takes some time and thought. I have also been playing around with themes to find one I really like. I have one I am happy with but I think I would like to use the Underscores starter theme to build and style my own theme. I already know how to build a theme from scratch but I will be honest I am too lazy too. I used to at one point but then things got a little beyond my skill level and even though I am teaching myself as I go I do not have the time I used to have to do this. I am going to start looking at tutorials.

Blood Sugar – I am proud to say I seem to really be getting some good results using my FreeStyle Libre and have been able to really limit my lows and highs and have gotten pretty decent control over my blood sugar. I am not getting nearly as many lows and my highs are getting better and I am having less of them as well. I wish I had taken pictures at the end of the month last month but I am going to be ensuring that I do that on a monthly basis and will likely add that into it’s own monthly post to help me keep track and to see the direction I am going in. Here are some screens from my FreeStyle Libre:

In the first picture you can see I have only had 8 lows over the last 30 days, which may seem like a lot but at one time I had 8 in a day so that is an improvement. In the second picture you see my average glucose levels broken up into 4 time periods. I tend to sometimes have some lows like the last picture shows when I wake up but sometimes I have some highs as well which is why the two pictures actually seem to be a bit confusing. In the third picture you see my time in target over the last 30 days, to me this is the most helpful screen as I can see that 71% of the time I am in target which I believe when I started the Libre back in March was less then 45% of the time in target. I am actually really happy with that screen and would like to aim for 80% by the end of next month. The last picture I will be honest. I don’t understand this one. I am not sure what it is showing me… if anyone knows let me know

Other things

I fell in love with my FreeStyle Libre this month. It has been a godsend! I loved it right away from the beginning but I now see as well how well it can help me control my diabetes and how I can see trends as to whether or not I am heading into a low or a high and correct it. I love that it helps keep my fingers from feeling like a pin cushion I also found out that should I need to get one at some point I could get coverage for an insulin pump. Right now my doctor wants to hold off and see how I make out with only one shot a day at night of Basaglar (a long acting insulin) and if I need to go back on a short acting insulin like NovoRapid and if so then consider a pump.

I purchased a subscription to Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom because I plan on taking more pictures and going more places and as I want to get back into blogging more and designing WordPress themes eventually myself I figured it would be a good thing to invest in.

Edward and I hiked Cape Split on May 19 and it was beautiful! I got a lot of pictures which if you haven’t seen them you can see them here. I am really proud of most of them. I am really hoping to get some time to take some online tutorials/lessons on photography and learn some more about taking pictures. I have taken a lot more pictures this month then I have in a long time and we have gone on a walk or hike every weekend. The feature image for this post was from the Cape Split hike from the beautiful woods we walked through before getting to the end of the cape.

As for health I have been pretty healthy considering. I had a bad cold a week into the month and still have a cough, runny nose, etc from it but am feeling much better now and better every day. I have ran out of sick days from earlier in the year already so I am trying to rack up all the extra lieu hours I can and I since I had a lot of vacation time saved up due to going on short term and not using it I have booked off 2 long weekends each month over the summer and a whole week in August.

This one I did not blog about but Edward fell a few weeks ago and hurt himself pretty good. At least I don’t think I mentioned it. He fell at work when he was outside changing garbage’s. I thought he had done some damage to his arm because it was badly bruised and had a huge lump on his arm but it seems mostly fine now and the bruising and swelling and lump went back down. He would not go and get it checked

Dad’s 66th Birthday was last week and we went to the Casino Nova Scotia for the Prime Rib buffet. It was wonderful! I loved it. I actually did not have any prime rib or mussels (I’m allergic to mussels) but there was a ton of other stuff there, soups, salads, pizza, pork, chicken, rice pilaf, vegtables, and lots of deserts. We had a great time and then I lost $20 in less then 5 minutes at a slot machine. Edward took a bit longer, about 30 minutes Dad had a good time and so did the rest of us.

Last week as well a beloved childhood amusement ride and a part of an amusement park my parents used to take me to when we lived in Germany burnt down. The park is Europa Park in Rust, Germany. This was my favorite amusement park we visited while we lived there. The ride was called Piraten in Batvia (Pirates in Batvia) and it was completely destroyed along with some other things in the area of the ride in the Scandinavian section of the park. No one was injured that I know of but it was quite the fire that needed over 200 fire fighters to put out. The ride was apparently open and in use at the time.

If you comment on this post I would love to know one thing (or more) that happened to you in the month of May?

So I decided since yesterday was Saturday and since I was feeling miserable with a cold that it was time to get out, get some fresh air and let Edward drive somewhere new and ignore the fact I felt like crap. So he drove us to Peggy’s Cove just outside Halifax. It was a beautiful day to go since it was 20°C out. It wasn’t super busy. Lots of room for climbing on the rocks and taking photos.

First we found a path between the Swiss Air Flight 111 Memorial and Peggy’s Cove so that I could get some photos from further away and then we went into Peggy’s Cove to go walk on the rocks and take pictures. It was beautiful but windy which was perfect for some nice wave pictures as well. This has always been one of my favorite places to go for a walk or to take pictures

This was also my first time ever using Adobe Lightroom CC to edit the pictures. I am actually pretty impressed with what I accomplished with it. They looked great on the camera screen but even better after editing. I am so happy I decided to buy the photography plan. I am really enjoying this again. I forgot how good photography and webdesign and blogging made me feel.

Maybe I will start with a bare bones framework and design my site from scratch. I’m not that good at coding and am not great with PHP but I do know HTML and CSS and I am all for teaching myself new things. Last time I tried it didn’t work out so well but I am not one to give up. So here’s to learning new things! This is going to be a great summer

First up we have a shot from the path between Peggy’s cove and the memorial:

Here’s a nice shot of a retreating wave, this was down right on the rocks around the Lighthouse. I was trying to play with the shutter speed, aperture and ISO but I’ll be honest I have no idea what I am doing so it didn’t work the way I had hoped but still turned out pretty nice anyways. I guess I will be looking up some tutorials on capturing water.

I took this one from the path as well with a 75-300mm lens that came with my camera. It just came with the two but it’s good enough to start out with. No point buying more or upgrading until I get better.

Another wave shot. This one I was also on the rocks a little further from the lighthouse but still accessible from the main parking lot. I love waves.

I think this was another shot right around the same spot as the one above:

This was also taken from the path by the memorial. I love how colorful the buildings in the little town are:

Not sure why I took this but I love it. It was also on the path before we got to Peggy’s Cove. It was a bit muddy walking down to it and I soaked my socks and sneakers and scratched the crap out of my legs through the brambles on the path walking down but it was well worth it. I almost forgot I had a bad cold at this point.

Another couple of wave shots down on the rocks near the lighthouse. I love how blue the ocean is. It really was that blue.

Last but not least a close up of the Peggy’s Cove lighthouse. According to Wikipedia the Village of Peggy’s Cove

The first recorded name of the cove was Eastern Point Harbour or Peggs Harbour in 1766. The village is likely named after Saint Margaret’s Bay (Peggy being the nickname for Margaret), which Samuel de Champlain named after his mother Marguerite.

I find that pretty interesting. I didn’t know this until I looked it up. You take for granted the places around you and don’t always know the history I find if you grow up there or you have been there a long long time as I have (over 20 years)

I am very happy how the pictures turned out since it is the first time in over two years I have even touched the camera really and it’s has got me wanting more. I can’t wait to get out and explore this summer. I have booked off like 6 long weekends between now and September at work and a full week in August around our 2 year wedding anniversary to go camping and to go explore places and really have a good time. I figure I get all this vacation, why not right?

Time for some questions for you guys: What are you passionate about? What makes you feel better when your sick? Do you have a hobby?